Mine!
by NeonZangetsu
Summary: What if Naruto snapped? What if Asuma's death pushed him over the edge? Would he change? Would he make a deal with the very demon that caused all of his pain? What would it do to his world if someone LIVED? Someone who knew his pain? NarutoxYugito. AU


**(Things I Want to Protect)**

"What the fuck is this?"

Yugito Nii remained motionless as a flock of birds scattered into the night. For all intensive purposes, she was dead. But the spike driven through her hands and the chains wrapped around her thighs and waist and arms suggested otherwise. She grimaced and tried to remain still. She failed. But if she had failed, then why was the fire suddenly doused. Regardless, the word plunged into darkness and dragged the campsite into the gloom.

Shrieking in disbelief and hurling obscenities, one of them burst out of their cot and started swinging a scythe blindly before he finally calmed down.

"OI! Kakuzu! What the fuck's going on!"

"Careful, Hidan." Someone warned. "You'll die."

"Like I'd let this fucker kill me!"

A deadly hiss snapped everything into focus. No, not a hiss, it was more of a...screech. Like some invisible rotary saw was hissing and spitting and screaming as it rapidly drew near. Yugito froze as it burst into view, a whirling and large looking orb of...what the hell was that? It looked like a godamned chakra shuriken! The scream stuck in her throat as it blurred past, reaming through the ground as though it were but harmless steam.

"You might not have a choice."

Skipping backwards, or so it sounded, Yugito counted the steps between each curse as the man leapt away from his attacker. Somewhere in the dark of the night his partner was likewise engaged in a similar retreat, and leaving him to pull her away from the epicenter of the blast. Yugito didn't dare raise her head to meet either of them. _Deception._ This must be a trick. Who would be foolish enough to come for her? To save her? To rescue her?

No one.

This was a scheme. That's what it all was and all this was; and so Yugito Nii would not allow herself to be baited. She kept her head down. She ground her teeth and willed her body to be still. Genjutsu or no, there was no point in delluding herself. She refused to gratify them with her attention. _Think. _There had to be a way out. _Focus._ She ignored her captors; the spike wedged through her hands flared mightily as Yugito dredged up her chakra.

_'C'mon..._

"Eh?" Her captor glanced down at the furious hiss rising from his captive. "What the hell-

**"Die."**

Blue wrapped around Yugito, sputtering and flickering as it rose from the seal traced across her hip. A wave of sickly sweet euphoria coursed through her veins and snapped her auburn eyes azure. An strange and burning azure iris inverted upon itself. Those slitted pupils mind worked feverishly as she dragged the Nibi's power out, and felt the changes begin. Muscles tensed and chakra swelled as her body became that burning and furious inerno.

The chakra threads lashed out, stabbing into the man's hand. The ghost flames roiled over him, slashing and tearing and scraping while its host could not. And he held on. The man was still holding her and he was grinning that sick and twisted barbed wire of a grin all over again. Yugito froze as he cussed and pulled another nasty looking spike from his coat. She had only an instant as his javelin did extending, elongating within a scraping clack.

"That hurt, _bitch!" _He spat the expletitive, but before he could retaliate, something large and red loomed over them. Yugito felt her body arch unwillingly as a wave of crimson chakra bathed her body. It was the sweetest high she'd ever felt. And _oh kami _did it feel! Like every cell in her body firing as one in an orgasm. She _ached _for this feeling and became addicted to it in an instant. She never wanted this feeling to stop, and when it did, Yugito was so enraptured that she almost whined in displeasure when the chakra abruptly tore away.

from her and rammed into her captor with three tails of bijuu chakra.

Three tails of bijju chakra had found Hidan's throat. Choking in surprise, the Jashinist was hurled away like a pebble across a pond. With all the force of a catapault. Hidan got tossed as if he were but a child and for all intensive purposes, it didn't look like he'd be coming back anytime soon. Yugito felt the tether of her belt snap under from the stain of this duden seperation. _Shit. _With a dazed oomph of surprise, she slammed into the soil and asphalt.

She bounced. Once. Twice. Three times after the impact, she was left skidding across the pavement as the blow launched her from the forest and into civilzation. Well, not quite. She forced her chin to scrape across the gravel and peer at her surroundings. She could just make out a temple of some sort. Unconrtolled, her body scraped and bruised, the jinchuuriki cloak shredded itself away from her and rapidly dissolved.

Yugito gasped, her body burning from the poison she had so willingly summoned. She'd managed to burn away the chains. Now only the spike ha way out of of this situation. So focused was she on this task that she saw nothing else. She never saw the blood, never heard the gasp, until Kakuzu's body toppled over her. She shrieked as the massive mountain of a man tumbled into her, eyes wide and mouth hidden behind his mask.

_Dead. _His body numbed and frozen face slumped over her knees. The A gaping hole in his chest gave a hint as to what his final moments must have been like. Yugito hoped that he'd at least suffered in those last precious seconds. It was a sick satisfaction and a twisted one, but it allowed her to pull one hand free from the spike. It hurt. Gods it hurt so much. But even as she whimpered against the pain and suffering, the hole began to close.

Her regeneration was limited to wounds such as these, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt like a bitch.

"Shit!"

That tore it.

Yugito _twitched_, daring to open an eye. _No good. _She could see only the lower half of her tormentor. He had his back to her. She would have gladly cut him down, had not the rod chosen that moment to stick itself within her other hand._ Wait._ A prickle of fear ran down her spine. This man was immortal. Even in her Two Tailed State she hadn't been able to kill him, or his partner. But Yugito was a master of perception and she knew that something had shaken this unshakeable phantom.

"Shut up, Hidan." His partner quipped. "He's coming."

This man, from his stiff back to the arched muscles in his neck, was afraid. What on earth could scare an immortal? What did you have to fear when you could not be killed? Yugito didn't know, and quite frankly she didn't want to know. She knew only that they weren't paying attention to her and that could change at any moment. She wriggled against her bonds and tried not to scream as the searing red agony seared swept through her hands.

_'Oh god.'_

_"Eeeeh?" _The scythe wielder drawled dumbly. "Oi, Kakuzu! What the hell is that supposed to mean, huh!" Somewhere to the south of them, Yugito heard a tree topple to the ground. She flinched away from the scent blown in by the breeze, her nostrils burning and her eyes tearing. Incredible. Her eyes widened against a sudden surge of sorrow in her eyes and inside her heart. She felt it all shatter and crumbled away, all the determined defiance she had worked so hard to maintain. to shatter her stockade. It had to be at _least _the sixth tail, there wasn't any other jinchuuriki aside from Killer Bee that could exude so much chakra and Killer Bee was-

_'Captured by that godamned Uchiha!'_

She bit down on the tears before they could consume her. Too late. Yugito sniffled wordlessly as she recalled her first encounter with Akatsuki. She recalled all too well that brush with death. Now, she was about to relive it and there would be no last second "ultimate interruption fool ya fool" as her comrade had so blatantly rhymed. Killer Bee wouldn't be coming this time. She had been dragged out into the world again and until moments ago, she'd all but resigned herself to death.

**"This is the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki."**

Yuigto felt her mouth drop open and her stomach shrivel as Nibi's internal voice echoed with Kakuzu's.

_"The Kyuubi's...jinchuuriki." _Was the darkness's frozen reply. "Now we won't have to search." Yugito doubled into herself, the resistance leaching from her body. Frantic, she struggled to turn herself up and right towards rushing of wind and the sudden stench of burning flesh. _No. _Her mind babbledincessantly. _Oh god no please don't let another one die because of me no no no I cant take that again no oh please no not again noooo..._

Brown eyes widened as it burst into the clearing.

Six tails of crimson chakra boiled around him, _him _for though he had already sank into his bijju form, this creature was undoubtedly male. He swiveled toward the three of them, dragging a strange and odd skeleton over his flesh. Clicking and clacking at every movement, the strange skeleton was more of a skeletal carapace than acutal armor. But it was sturdy, and Kakuzu's first shot had swung to the right as it glanced harmlessly aside and slammed into a nearby tree.

**_"Yursenai." _**A strange voice filtered through the chakra, a boy's voice._** "Zettai ni...Yuresenai." **_Yugito stiffened as a _seventh _tail boiled out of the cloak. The nameless jinchuuriki didn't so much as flinch when the long and limber exoskeleton snapped taught around his torso and became compacted bone. White fury blazed out of those soulless eyes and hatred dripped from those teeth that hungered for nothing but destruction.

They locked upon Yugito and sank down _hard._

There wasn't any pain. Yugito, realized this as the ripping and tearing of _fabric _reached her ears. Hoisted her upward. She couldn't help it. Yugito _yelped _as the beast nonchalantly tossed her backward and over his shoulder, teeth tearing open the back of her blouse as he flung her to safety. No sooner had she been heave-hoe'd than another beam of light lanced out against the darkness. More like a laser than an actual beam, it carved through the rocky terrain and leveled a score of trees as she tumbled off the rocks, gasping at the gravel dragging across her bare midriff.

"The Two Tails!" Kakuzu must have seen her, because he surged forward. "Hidan you idiot-**GHACK!"**

He flew _backward _as the phantom fist smashed across his face. Not so much as injured as annoyed, Kakuzu swore and backed out of range to better asses this opponent. The odd shield of bone curled tighter around the beast as it lurched forward, seizing Hidan on the backswing. Caught in the midst of his strike, the Jashinist uttered a strangled curse and was hurled into the forest. Abandoning his attack on the immortal, the abomination spun to engage Kakuzu again, fangs pulling up ever so slighty, knowing that the ambush had failed.

Bellowing forward with the incredible speed of their kind, he attacked. Kakuzu went down and he went down hard as teeth found flesh. The two grapled for a moment, before the unthinkable happened. Yugito watched the cloak rip itself away and reveal one of the shattered things on Kakuzu's back. Yugito heard the demon yelp in anger, keening in pain as it spat out black strings and other nasty goop that had tasted foul. It would have been amusing, had not the kyuubi-boy uttered a furious hiss afterward. Kakuzu was just starting to get up when the boy leveled a malevolent stare. He had just put his hands together when the beast ripped him apart.

Slashing and hacking at Kakuzu with such a fury that the former Taikgakure shinobi couldn't even defend. Yugito watched it all, and she began to weep as the Jashinist returned to the fray and slowly, ever so slowly, the jinchuuriki began to fatler. Not again. Not another meaningless death. No. Not again. Killer Bee had fallen for this same trap and now this one would make the same mistake. Once again, someone would die the same death.

She froze as blood spattered her face. One of them, the Jashinist known as Hidan; came staggering out of the clearing. He had been twisted around backward, missing an arm and a sizeable portion of his stomach. Deep and festering wounds had been glazed with crimson chakra. He saw and started toward her, but the fox took that opportunity to end him with a snarling sweep of its many tails. In less than an instant, the trees snapped down around the Jashinist, burying him alive.

That left Kakuzu.

Low and deep, a feral snarl tore out after the backpedalling immortal.

"So this is the Kyuubi jinchuuriki."

It snarled.

_You_ _Fool!_ Her body screamed at the encroaching surge of crimson. Its a trap! Go! Run! Leave! Stay the hell away from me! Don't you know! Don't you care! Chakra boiled out of the seal at his stomach and empowered him further and he did not respond to her silent plea. Instead, the odd helmet of bone and tissue snapped into place around his face. The eigth tail slithered out of the monstrosity's back and Kakuzu suddenly looked very, _very _small beside the giant fox that now loomed over him.

Even moreso when a giant paw crushed him underfoot. Yugito had no idea how he'd survived the first attack, but there was no way, _just no way _that anyone could sruvive that. Apparently the fox was of a like mind for the skinless kitsune turned toward the forest and uttered a worldess scream in challenge. When nothing emerged, it spat a massive geyser of flaming globules from its maw. Taking a wild and erratic path, the fireballs slammed into the forest with wordless and reckless discretion.

Yugito buried her head in an arm.

_'Godamned Akatsuki!'_

Didn't he know that this was all a trap! Whoever this fool was, he was going to die! DIE! Because of her! Yugito curled herself around the spike, but the chains prevented that final act of defiance. She could not bring herself to push that last inch and ram the spoke through her heart. She just couldn't. Tears stung and burned and _oh god it hurt! It hurt so freaking much! Too much too much it hurt her eyes her head her chest her neck it all just hurt and now she wasn't making any sense at all and she was going to die and so was another one and oh god just make it-_

**_"Rrrrrgh..._**

Crimson flashed into sapphire as the demon fox paused. It tilted its head, and began to tremble through its transformation. Yugito frowned and forced the last of the rod from her flesh. Casting the cold and cumbersome aparatus aside, levering herself up on either elbow, the blond quietly rose into a sitting position. The fox was shaking its head now, visibly pained. Without warning, it began to shrink, slowly falling back into the canopy and vanishing beneath the forest.

By the time she'd forced herself into a slumped crouch upon the tree, it had reached a size aproximate to a large human.

Human skin could be seen through red as the monster receded and the boy emerged. Regaining whiskered cheeks and scraggly blond. Crimson faded into sapphire and tails slurping into his back with a wet pop. Crrouched on all fours, the beast staggered backward as the the fifth and fourth tails vanished, dwindling to three and two and finally, one. The cloak collapsed into human. Fur and fox had all but vanished whrn the true face of her rescuer emerged.

"Erm, miss?" His voice rumbled with forced formality. _"I'll need you to be coming with me."_

Sapphire eyes glimmered gently in the moonlight. A red cloak billowed out from his shoulders and draped around her in a silent shroud. A gray-green vest could be seen just beneath. He smiled then and Yugito felt her heart thud painfully as his lips quirked into an encouraging smile. He knelt before her, unsteadily dropping to one knee and extending a hand at the same time. Yugito had no words to exrpess the strange sensation she felt in that moment.

"W-Who are you?"

He was more than happy to comply.

"Uzumaki Naruto." He reached forward to touch her wrist. "I'm...well, I guess you could say I'm like you _but,"_ He proudly flicked a thumb to the forehead protector above his eyes. Yugito nearly shrank back as she saw the Konoha symbol etched into the steel. Either unaware of her hesitation or uncaring, Naruto continued with his little introduction.

"I'm from Konoha." He stated, sparing a glance to the ruin his entrance had created. "But there'll be time for that later. Right now we really, REALLY need to leave." Almost as soon as he'd said this, the black and condemnatory oath reached their ears. Even in her battered and disheveled state, Yugito recognized the voice. She recognized the tattered shape rising from the rubble and brimming with a hate so furious that it was palpable.

"Boy, its been a long time since someone's gotten two of my hearts." Threads rose and fell from his arms and legs. "Even if you are a jinchuuriki, that's unforgiveable." Kakuzu brushed himself off and turned to face the bewildered blond. Save for the shattered masks at his back. But these strange objects must have had some sort of meaning to the Akatsuki, because as the grayish tint faded from Kakuzu's skin so too did a roiling mass of the flesh threads.

"Ah, shit." Naruto cussed. "Can't you just stay down for a few more seconds?" Yugito stole a bewildered glance at her fellow jinchuuriki. How the hell could he smile at a time like this! Indeed, the host of the Kyuubi no Yoko was grinning from ear to ear as though the hideous apparition before him were an everday occurence. Still grinning, he reached into the ground, pushed through it, and came up with the strange looking scythe Hidan had wielded not too long ago.

...Curse you!" Kakuzu said this, but didn't budge. In fact, he foled his arms over his head in a ridiculous posture, one that he seemed none too pleased about. Naruto only chuckled, his gaze sliding off into the distance where another one of his allies must have been hidden. When had he maneuvered them into position? She shook her head as Naruto stopped laughing, his features twisting back into an amused and mocking sneer.

"You've been under Shikamaru's Shadow Mimic before, ne, Kakuzu-san?" Naruto inquired as the sound of footsteps neared their location. "Well, this is a bit different. Very different. Still you ought too know that you won't be able to lift a finger against me right now, hmm? Putting all of that aside, where's you friend?" Naruto sneered, hoisting the scythe and helped Yugito to her feet. "Come to think of it, I could have _sworn _he was holding this when I ripped his head off...

"Fuck you!" A familair voice shouted. "C'mere so I can bite your throat out!"

"That's not a very good reason to come near you." Naruto chimed pleasantly. "After all, you _are _just a head."

He stared pointedly at the tattered pile of limbs just south of Kakuzu's position. Kakuzu followed his gaze toward Hidan's screaming head, uttering a wordless sound of annoyance as his body forced it self into a debilitating crouch. Yugito looked past both of them, toward the shadows. _There._ Just to the east of them, Yugito detected one, two, three, four different clones. She could not see as well as she might have liked in the gloom, but their scent told her at once that of these four, each of them had a strange scent about them.

Almost as if...

"Now then," Naruto grinned and slapped his hand upon the ground. "A little parting gift for the two of you, Kakuzu-san." His eyes snapped slitted as the runes and writing leached out of his palm and sprayed across the ground and blood. "Asuma-sensei gives his regards." This snipe of an insult had the effect of twisting the Akatsuki's face into a disbelieving scowl. Then the smoke billowed out and around them, and the forces holding him in place were gone.

And so was the target(s).

"Oi!" Hidan shrieked. "Kakuzu! You let them get away you stupid dickh-

He never did get to finish that sentence, as an enraged Kakuzu punted his head over the horizon...

**A/N: YES THIS TAKES PLACE SOMETIME AFTER ASUMA'S DEATH. YES YUGITO IS ALIVE AND ESCAPED THE FIRST TIME. YES THIS STORY IS UNIQUE AND YOU'LL ALL UNDERSTAND JUST WHY NARUTO IS SO BADASS... IN THE NEXT CHAPTER! ALL WILL BE EXPLAINED!**


End file.
